A Second Pentagon for Christian Kindness

A Second Pentagon for Christian Kindness

by Frank Laubach

Transcribed from the original recording; may contain errors.

We thank You to God more here than we are, because I, by itself, so much more than we are. And I have the plan for this evening, for this whole camp. All we need to do is not to explain or try that we will, to let You have our will. Oh, help us to be so relentless and so utterly play in our hands, that the thing I just desire to do to mold, in this camp, a pseudonym arm has come to pass. Melt us together in a great unity. We thank You for the way that prayed with, through that this afternoon. We pray that tonight, tomorrow morning, all during the day, and we keep on being melted into oneness with the beautiful center. These are very melted in the sky.

Now, what is I desire to say to us tonight? Oh, I say to You, to give my lips to say aloud, what I desire said aloud. And then help all of us to open up again, let’s keep open all the time, so that I can’t whisper.

I’m sorry. It’s a very small voice. But I just want us to hear. Help us to listen and to learn how to hear, I guess, for teen years. We could be left today and today again. To make this the finest experience of our lives. And it will be every year out of the… Shining in the way. Everywhere we ought to be. Stepping upwards to our feet. We have to step up. Step up.

Tonight into now and the next day. May my God to be. May to be. Not only to Thy side but to Thy thought, to Thy will, to Thy everything. I have done in here. We are walking in our lives tonight. Among us all.

O invisible. Risen. Ever living. Ever present.

I was, last Saturday, the staff of, Washington in Virginia, in, Tuckin’ home of that famous sculptor Walter Russell. And, some very wonderful things that he did. It’s marvelous. But I don’t think anything I saw was, that’s my house. I see two here. And I think, Justin Tuck got made. Is that right? No, I like it.

And I saw nothing that seemed to me to be so wonderful with these two. I see. Now, this here on my left represents the aspiration of Asia. Or how would you say it? Is that it? Or the soul of Asia. The highest ideal. The highest ideal of Asia. Looking up. Looking up. Glorious thing. You don’t ever look at me tonight. You got something good to look at. And over here, this other one represents the light of Africa. The torch of Africa.

Now, I want to come here tonight. I’m so glad the Lord let us come to bring them here. Because I want to talk to you tonight about Asia and Africa. And especially about Asia. And I want to talk to you because this meeting tonight for us, in this CFO session, right? That’s the result of action. We need action now. More than you realize, although I guess you realize it enough, from the magazine. We are losing the present world. And it’s tragic, but it’s true, that the United States of America is losing stock this month, last month, the month before. We have been for a long time without knowing it, but if we are awakening to it now. And if we are ever to regain what we are losing, the confidence and the love and affection of the world, it is the spirit of the world. It is what you can do. For the world, it will change it. I feel it so deeply that, at times, my heart nearly breaks. And the sense of that comes over me tonight. So I want you to pray tonight, that the Lord may give me the power, to say very clearly what I think He once said, how it looks, I hope, I believe, from His point of view.

What’s the matter over there in Asia? Why are we losing their confidence? Well, we are. And what can we do about it? You have, many of you, seen this little thing that I find back there on the table.

A war… America’s War of Amazing Kindness, every war, a little pamphlet which I wrote. And you’ll find it in the middle of that book called The Man Who Remembers. And the first part that day is as true tonight as it was when I was there, three, four, five years ago. True, as a matter of fact. The first part of my talk is going to be… facing unpleasant facts. That’s certainly unanswerable facts.

I said there that… As the Communists captured China in four brief years, right after the end of the World War, captured China without losing a gun, and without losing a man, a Russian, a firing, a highly firing a Russian gun, a Chinese-fired gun. Captured here in four years, one-fourth of the human race. The most stupendous and… incredible, fantastic victory in history. Never was anything like it before. And now, what makes it necessary to say this thing tonight is the fact that it’s still going on.

You’ve heard me say this before, some of you. If you hear me talk anywhere, you’ve heard this. And perhaps you said, well, perhaps not. But with what you see going on in India, China, nobody would come here and be foolhardy enough to contradict what I’m now saying. We are in danger of losing our reservation. And then I am sure of this with Africa, all of Africa, in the next two years, perhaps four years from now. And then we change our strategy. It’s wrong. It has been wrong all the time. And I want to try to make sure what I believe is true, what I believe is wrong about us. It isn’t because the Republicans are wronger than the Democrats, or the Democrats are wronger than the Republicans. It’s because we are wrong. We have come out of a period which is wrong. A period in which we believed, although we profess the Sermon on the Mount, we talked about it, preached about it, listened to it, said yes to it, but we really believed in power politics. We really believed in the big stick. We really believed in war to settle things. And we got one more right after another this century. We believed in them. More or less, enough at least to go in, or send their sons to die for them.

And now over in Asia, we are still bewildered because we think that’s going to do something. I’m hesitant even to say what I’m going to say. I can see this. I can’t help it. That seems to me realistic. I don’t know whether it’s Christian or not, but it seems realistic that we’ve got to be powerful enough with our bombs and our jet planes, about equal to Russia, so she won’t attack. I don’t like to say that. And I may be wrong. But I say it anyhow, because that’s the way it looks to me. I don’t think Russia is going to attack us with bombs, atom bombs or hydrogen bombs or any other kind, over the North Pole. I’ll tell you why. Those people there are very realistic men. And they don’t do anything to hurt them. But what I’ll do now is this, that the war that’s now going on, the war that is capturing South Asia, doesn’t need any bombs. They’ve discovered a new weapon. The weapon that never was used on a world scale before. It is propaganda. Lousy lies. Not all lies. A mixture of lies and some truth. I know the truth, that they tell. They go to the people and tell them you, all the people I already know. Not me?

You’re hungry. That’s true. You’re sick. That’s true. You’re in debt. That’s true. You’re exploited, because you’re ignorant. That’s truth. And then they tell them, your enemy is your government. And sometimes that’s true. That enemy of yours is holding you down. That has been true in the past, often. Not always, but in some areas of Asia. Always let your government and chase out the foreigners and carry it and take the land and become communists and you’ll have everything. That’s the promise they’re given. And that’s the promise they can’t fulfill. That’s a lie. But the little people that I know so well, the illiterate people, that I know I think better than any other American, because I’ve got between the size tens of thousands of them. They’re my best friends. And those little people of mine are too terrible. They can’t tell the difference between truth and the falsehood. They believe anybody who offers to help them out. Nothing could do this, so they’ll take a chance with anything. That’s the way those little people are. And so, all over Asia, that’s the way China was captured with promises going out to those people. They mobilized an army of… And the natives, you know where they got their army. They weren’t Russians. They took students, very much like we’re taking students, here in the United States now.

Then they gave them a very rigid discipline in communism. And then, where did they get them? Where did they get them? How did they get them? Well, I’ll tell you that. In Asia, there has been mis-education. Instead of educating people to work, like we should do, and usually to do, more and more we do that, they educated people so they wouldn’t need to work. Young people, they’re living around to take the jobs of their forefathers. And so they went to school. And the school taught them how to be printed, with their right hands and right powers, and do no work. And so in Asia, you can find, you have found, as you’ve been there as I have, not thousands, but millions of men and women, young people, who don’t know how to work. Now the Communists go to them, and say to them, you’re out of a job. The government owes you a job. Well, the government gives as many jobs as they had for those fellows, and then there was a gross surplus. Hundreds of thousands of them left over with nothing to do. So they said to them, and you let us train you, and then we’ll have an over to all this government, and then when you get into power, we’ll make a governor of you.

And that sounds good to them. And so for little and nothing, very little, just enough to keep them alive, they go out and look them on my ear, and tell them your government’s your enemy, or will throw it. And then you’ll have heaven. And that’s the way it worked in China. It worked in 20 years like that. Because they were hungry. The reason why is they were hungry. The students and the illiterate masses. And it’s better than they were around, and there was truth in it. So, but now they’ve got behind the Iron Curtain, and anybody there after the Iron Curtain goes down, who objects, protests, they talk like I can’t hear. I’m going to say that the policy of the United States is wrong. But if I were in Russia, I’d get killed in 20 minutes, if I said that, about Russia. And then more freedom. That’s the price they pay, the lastest freedom, for anything they may gain. And whether they gain or not, I don’t know. Not much, if they gain at all. We can’t tell behind the Iron Curtain. But we do know, everybody agrees, that all freedom’s gone. Even though they’re children, fire on their parents. Behind the Iron Curtain. They’re told to, in the school. Tell us what your parents say, what they do.

And then their parents get killed if they’re… The one word, against the government. Now that’s all true. My little people are falling before that, because they don’t know what democracy means, and they don’t know what communism means. They don’t know any of these things. All they know is that they’re hungry. Now that’s the diagnosis of this situation. Over in Asia. But what have we been doing about it? What has the American government been doing? And what has the West been doing? This.

Over in Asia today, there is a great movement to get rid of the farmer. of colonialism. There has been, for the last four or five centuries, before and since Columbus discovered America, great expansion of Europe. And now it’s shrinking. Britain lost India four or five or six years ago. And now France is going to lose Indochina. It’s a great tragedy that the United States of America has been seeming to back up France. I’ve heard a while the government in Washington thought they had to do it. It’s all complicated, but I think I can make it a little bit simple. We were trying to get France to join us in Europe, in NATO. Therefore, we had to keep France’s friendship. France was afraid to let go of Indochina because if she did, our deers and Morocco and all of French Africa, the Sahara deserts in Equatorial Africa and the Cameroons would all rise and demand our independence. And France was afraid to let go of one so she’d lose all of her colonies. So you see, it was a terrible situation. We couldn’t put the heat on her. And she was afraid to let go. And she didn’t let go until the communists came in and forced her to. That’s too bad. I said, about six or seven years ago, I wrote to John Foster Dulles.

And I said to him, Mr. Dulles, there’s one thing that stinks to high heaven in the world. I use those very words. That is, France holding on to Indochina when everybody in Indochina wants her to get out. And I said, why don’t you persuade her to get Indochina over to the United Nations and then have an election as soon as you can? Well, he didn’t answer me very clearly. He said, I don’t know the answer in Indochina, but I know your answer isn’t the right one. Well, I suppose the reason it wasn’t the right one is because France wouldn’t do it. That’s the only reason. I don’t know whether that’s what he meant. I had a very interesting time with Stanley High today. He was down with President Eisenhower last week. And I had lunch with him. Today.

President Eisenhower’s speech at least some, perhaps all, of what I’m doing to tell you tonight. Because I told Stanley High what I’m telling you. The whole policy over Asia is based on that old philosophy that might is the thing that will still conquer the world. Might will hold us for that. But might won’t do anything in any Asia. A lot of people are fooled about that over in Washington. One of the big generals, one of the leaders, I’d better not name him, said to me a few weeks ago, the only thing they’re understanding Asia is force. They look to see which power is the strongest and then they get in behind the winning horse. And I said, that’s the first mistake America’s making today. She thinks, at least that’s so, that if we show more power than Russia, that though, Asia will follow us. And that’s the very reason why she won’t. Asia wants to get away from power, from colonialism, and she’s afraid to take the place of Europe. That’s the reason why that’s wrong. For example, I think it was altogether wrong for us to arm Pakistan. We made one-sixth of the human race, that is to say India, next to China is the biggest country on Earth, very much the biggest. Two and a half times as many people as we have here.

More than twice as many as I have in Russia. We never go angry every last one of them by arming Pakistan. Of course we did it because we were trying to build a wall around the Communists. But I was up in Minneapolis two weeks ago, last Sunday, two or three weeks ago, and speaking to a big crowd. And I told them it was a mistake to arm Pakistan. And when I was finished, ten students, twelve from Pakistan came up to see me. I don’t know what they were in the audience. And one of them said, I resent what you said about arming Pakistan. I said, Well, I thought Pakistan has too much on our back already to keep a hungry people fed without the awful weight of a big military. And he said, No. The other man said, No. India was going to take Kashmir. But now we’ve got your arms, and we’ll chase India out of Kashmir. Did you know that you were arming Pakistan to fight India? You thought it was to fight Russia, or to protect us from Russia. But, at least we’ve met both India and a great few, many other people along the southern part of Asia. Anger and afraid, because we armed Pakistan. That’s one of our mistakes. There is back in France.

And I was combining this program, and now it’s called technical cooperation, and combining that with defense. And we said, This is the defense program. All of us just said, We’re not interested. We thought we were interested in that. We’re only interested in saving your own skin. Terrible mistake. It is our only made-up mistake. But the major mistake is, that we think, at least active though we think, that you can frighten Asia into firing us. You can’t stress her. You can’t do it. The only thing you can do is do Asia. She’s frightened now. She’s afraid of Russia, but she’s also afraid of us. And I’m sorry to say, this is worse than I said it was. If you look over there, and you read the newspapers, as I do, in those countries, both English and rural languages, every day of the year, you see some terrifying, terrifying, terrifying account of new weapons in America. And you don’t see very much about how we were anxious to help the world. And that’s the reason why they misunderstand us. Week one Monday, I was with 40 Afghan students up here in Madison Wisconsin. Lovely boys. And they said to me, we didn’t know the American people were so nice. We thought all they thought about, and all you do to honor is marching around with guns and getting great new weapons built.

Now that’s the impression that the people abroad get from the newspapers, because newspapers always publish the most frightening things, and the worst things, the worst scandals, to get a newspaper to do that abroad just as they do here. So the impression that Asia has got of us is wrong. And also, I really believe philosophy is wrong. So here’s where we’ve got to change. Now why are we wrong? I believe this is the reason. Our strategy is built in a huge building that I flew over the day before yesterday. It is called the Pentagon. I took the plane from Washington to come out here, and there is this great building. The Pentagon is where our military strategy is built up. Strategy to defend ourselves from the world, from Russia and the communists. And the men in the Pentagon were trained in West Point and Annapolis for the other kind of war. They were not fighting now. There is no Pentagon containing men who are trained to fight a war of Christian service and amazing kindness. And I believe the reason why we have been and are still making the big noise, spending $100 for military preparation for every dollar we spend to help the world, is because the strategy of the United States is built there and handed on to our Congress and to our President.

Night and day, those men who were the maps of the world, pinpointing the places where they need to defend themselves from an imaginary or a future possible attack. And all the time the war goes on, that we are losing now. The attack goes on every day. Not with any guns, but with primacy, with propaganda. I’ve heard about that. Then the answer to all this is very plain. Indeed, friends, it’s so plain, so easy, that when I’m aware and just see how easy it is, I tinker with optimism. When I get back here, I tremble with desperation. Because the only thing needed today… I mustn’t get so excited, but I am good. The only thing needed today is for America’s blind eyes to be opened, for her to see herself as others see her. To see that the thing we ought to be talking about, that the newspapers of the world ought to be shouting about here. America’s loving heart. America’s desire to help the world. That’s what malign people want. A helping heart. They want a friend. They don’t want a gun. They don’t want a threat. They don’t want a big stick. They want a helping hand. And so, we need another kind of Pentagon. A pentagon made up of the best minds in the ministry, the best minds in Christian businessmen, the best minds in the teaching profession, the farnest Christians we’ve got, who will spend their whole time, sitting there day and night as they do and night at the pentagon, the maps of the world pinpointing the places which they will attack with amazing kindness.

I’m thinking of something now that is very good to illustrate what I mean. If you’re old enough, you remember the First World War, and you remember that Herbert Hoover, whom I’ve come to admire more of a year, was over in Europe and was asked if he wouldn’t do something to help the starving Belgium and French. And so he organized an army. And do you know what they called it, what they were doing over in France and Belgium? They had to persuade both the Germans and the British to let them do it. Both had more or less to do it. I was explaining why. But both of them knew it. And who knew it was said, we’ve got to discover where to engage Belgium and France will help. They looked so horrible. And that’s what I think America will have to do. This new pentagon that I’m talking about tonight, a pentagon of world Christian service, will have to pinpoint the world and discover places where they can be helpful. If we spent… Oh, it wouldn’t need very much money. No fantastic figures like you have to spend for military purposes would not be needed. But if we could have an all-out program like this, the government doing more, business cooperating, philanthropy… Do you realize that philanthropy is under attack from some of the most reactionary fascists we’ve got in the United States today?

Are trying to discredit philanthropy because it helps other people in the world. And philanthropy and the church, those four, in an all-out nationwide attack of kindness like Herbert Hoover made in Europe. We could have the heart of the world like the Friends Service Committee has. That little organization is a demonstration of what could be around the world if America will see the lights and stop fighting the world. We’ll make any new weapons. They’re right, if you want to… Now, of course, you know about it. Write a million of them telling what you’ve just discovered. But keep it out of the papers in Asia. I don’t think the newspapers ought to be allowed to know what we’re discovering. I suppose that’s so you’ll pay the bill for the military. It’s proud of what we’re achieving. I suppose that’s the thought here in America now. It’s all about these things to sell them to our own people. But in doing so, we’re saving out America for the rest of the world. And I show it with broken hearts. That’s the way it is today. It’s got to change. If we can change soon enough, and begin to see that we can win the world by loving it and helping it, we can have the whole world. The little people, they’re behind me tonight.

I feel about a billion than five hundred million of them. Ten times the population of the United States. Trying to talk through my voice. Trying to tell you who can have us. We’re one of the head. We’re hungry. We’re sick. We want to help. We don’t want a friend pointed at us. We don’t have any threats. We don’t have any… We’re afraid of power. Everyone is a friend. We’ll help us. And if you can help us, you can have us. We won’t believe the Communists anymore. If only you’ll come and do what they promised to do. Now, this world’s amazing kindness that Coiningera is trying to promote. And so am I, and many others are. We have this advantage over the Communists. They can’t do anything right now, because they’re telling the masses over to the government, there’s their enemy, of course. But we can go into it now. Let’s give them an alibi. They can say, We can’t do anything yet. Not to overthrow your government. But we can go in there right now. Now, I was just telling them, I don’t know why today. This, that I repeat. You didn’t hear it. I’ve been asked about 56 different governments to come and help them with their literacy. That sounds fantastic when you realize that I have a passport with the word missionary on it.

And I can’t believe it myself. You can’t believe it, though. I’ll give you the list, though, and you can write and ask them. But I can’t believe it myself, but as I went from country to country answering those to this invitation, I would ask them, Why are you doing this? I remember Siam very well. Pretty much, Siam. When I got there, he invited me to come and see him. And I said, Why are you doing this? And he said, Siam, Thailand is shot full of Communist agitators. They’re telling the people that we’re their enemy. The people want to learn to read. We’ve got to prove we’re their friends, so we’ve got to teach them to read. And we don’t know how. So, you have the reputation, the well that this committee has, of seeing the organization at no time. That’s why you’re here. And every time I asked them, Down in, Kenya Colony, where the Mau Maus have been getting so much trouble, The Director of Education said to me, These masters here in Kenya Colony are determined to get an education. And we can’t hold them down any longer.

And that’s the way it is all over the world. That now, every nation outside of the Iron Curtain is frightened. And whether it was benevolent or didn’t care, It is now so terrified that it wants our help. So, here we are, my friends, in this phenomenal condition that, if you see it as clearly as I do, you’ll cry about it. As I often do.

Every leader in the world wants help, a mark. But we think that they’ll follow the strongest powers, So we make a big noise about our strength. Good heavens. Every government in the world wants our help today. Because they’re frightened with the masses.

And so we offer to own them. And we don’t understand. You know, I don’t blame anybody for not knowing it. You couldn’t know it unless you were out there. And unfortunately, our president and every president has had tough, often men, The guys with them. Now, Chester Bowles is different. If you asked him, he would agree with what I said tonight in the main. Pretty nearly everything. And I reached Mr. Drazena Howard allowed him to remain in India, but he didn’t. Couldn’t. But that’s alright. But there are people who have been out there and have seen this thing, who would agree with me 100% That just the moment my country changes its policy, we can have the world. Now, here’s another thing. You can have it a little out, but you can’t have it with bombs. The more bombs you make, the more they’re afraid of it.

I want to talk a little bit about China right now. At the present time, almost every country in the world, excepting the United States, is in favor of admitting China to the United Nations. But our country stands out alone, almost. I think he’s wrong. I’ll tell you why. If you read the Reader’s Digest this week, you’ll see a Louis Fischer’s brilliant article, this month I mean, on China and Russia, allies or rivals. In which Louis Fischer comes to the conclusion that China will lead on to follow Russia, excepting what she must. Now, up to this time, by trying to block out all trades of the rest of the world, and by trying to infiltrate, planning, down in Burma, over in Formosa, other places to infiltrate and crush China. We have forced China to become the servings of Russia. But Louis Fischer believes that I have believed that for seven years or eight years. You know, I thought so much about five years ago, I sent Harry Truman a telegram. And told him, why don’t we try to drive a wedge between China and Russia? Because the Chinese people don’t want to be hanging on to the apron strings of Russia, but we’re making her do it. I suppose that was so bad that Joseph McCarthy knew about it, and I were important enough, I’d fall on the carpet about that one.

But I said that because I’m a patriot. I live in my country, I hate communism, and I believe the way to conquer it is to divide it. I believe we can divide it now. So, and that is another thing that I think we have to do. Now, I want to conclude this picture this evening by just saying two things clearly. And later on, if you want to talk to me about it, if you don’t understand what I meant, oh, I want to talk to you about it.

You remember your own Senator Knowland the other day said, if the United Nations accepts China, Communist China, I am in favor of pulling out of the United Nations. That would be the most disastrous thing for this little country that ever happened. because you can easily find yourself, if we don’t stop the wrong direction we have so often gone, you can find yourself isolated with the entire world against you, even Latin America. That wouldn’t be hard at all. So that’s the wrong thing, and I hope that you Californians will write to your Senator and say you’re on our side. At that proposal, it is all wrong. If you feel like saying that you believe that China ought to be running the United Nations, then we ought to try our best to make it unnecessary for her to hang onto the apron strings of us. And so that’s true. That’s what I believe. We can make another Yugoslavia, another Tito, out of Mao, I believe, any time we want it.

If we do it this way. 400 missionaries. And by the way, any of you in China knew what was this? Well, 400 missionaries. I know I did many of them, and knew about the others. Who came back from China, believed that China is so big that she won’t be a surgeon to Russia, and that he could drive a wedge between them. And I went down to Washington and saw the Secretary of State and had a talk with him about that. He said, you better consult them. So they got 20 of those missionaries come down to Washington and talked to them about it. That is about five years ago. Four or five years ago. I don’t know. Nothing ever came to that, as of course you know. Our policy being to get us tough with China as it can, as well as with Russia.

Now, what are we going to do about it here? I’d like to see the CFO of the United States take a dozen of hands in forming the policies of America in the direction of Christian kindness. You may not agree with every position I took tonight. That isn’t necessary.

I’ll just give you what my convictions are, but you do agree with some of it. You must feel unhappy about our professing Christianity and seeming to the rest of the world to be the opposite. And which one of it was, who was it, who told me, one of you, about one of the students over here in the United States, who had that wrong question about America. All of you must have said something like that. What can we do about it? Well, I’ll tell you what we can do.

I’d like to ask if somebody would be, ask as a secretary to copy the names of the representatives and the senators that are in this book. And put it up on the wall somewhere where you can see your own congressman, your own senator. And had him, had him, went home and here in St. Amar and bought this book, which contains these names. And then, write to your congressman, Senator, as much as you want to. If you don’t feel that you’re intelligent enough to write much advice, write until you’re praying for him. And that you want him to be sure that America appears to the rest of the world to be a Christian country.

And then anything else would want to. As a matter of fact, I wrote out here what I would say, if I would like to do something. I can publish this for you too, if you want to, but… Now, I would say to him, you’ve got a congressman and you’ve got two senators. And, they are very, very good listeners. If you write to the president, as one is inclined to do, the trouble with the president is he gets too many letters. He has a staff to read them and a collado of a sentence here and there that he thinks is important, or a person is important, and throw the rest in the paper basket. So the president of the United States doesn’t get most of your letters. But your senator and your congressman gets every last one of them, and he reads it as well as mine. Because he wants your vote and he wants your influence and he’s afraid he’ll lose the next election. And he doesn’t get much mail. That is true of a good many congressmen. They don’t get too much mail. They’ve got a fine staff of secretaries down there. How do I know so much? Well, I’ll tell you what. Last summer, I spent about two months in Washington, within half a draft of the House of Representatives offices.

And I was lobbying. I was desperately afraid that Congress was going to cut down appropriations on India, for India and for… in Point Four. That’s because of… I don’t know whether I had anything to do with it, but I’ll tell you this. They didn’t cut down and increase it to my good show. But Stanley High told me something today. He said the president last week, Eisenhower, was very badly discouraged because this year Congress is going to cut down the appropriations for bringing foreign students to this country. And Eisenhower believes that’s a good thing. There’s always something definite to write about if you want to, if you believe in it. But if we’re going to bring them over here, we’ve got to be mighty sure that they’re surrounded by Christian influences and invited to Christian homes. I think myself it’s a very, very wonderful way in which you can help the world that I bring abroad. The world comes here. Last week that I told you I was with 40 or 50 students in Afghanistan. Every one of them is a graduate student. Most of them engineers. Some of them education. Some of them around here in the Pacific coast. It’s got it all over America. And there are students like that all over. And it’s a wonderful opportunity to be a missionary in America.

Some of you know that. That’s wonderful. I’m going to read my letter to you. I will say I’m praying for you. I’ve read that America is losing her prestige in the Orient. I believe that the only way to save Asia, to make Asia lovers, is by waging a war of loving service. I hope there will be a great increase of money and effort in that direction. I believe there ought to be a Pentagon of Christian service in Washington or somewhere, to study the world every hour and win it by helping it. Help itself, of course. I believe we ought to admit China, the United Nations, and then try to woo her away from Russia. I believe we ought to take every possible step to win the love and the cooperation of India. Now, I guess I better say a word about India, before I close. Can you say a little bit more?

Nobody can, I bet it. But I just want to say this, even if you can’t stand it. We’re being misunderstood. We misunderstand Nehru, desperately in America. Time after time, somebody’s sitting in an airplane in a river. I get talking about India, where I’ve been, and he says, Well, what kind of a fellow is this man Nehru? Is he crazy? Won’t cooperate with us? Won’t form a military alliance with us? Now I’ll tell you the facts about Nehru.

No, he’s just like President Eisenhower. Or like your congressman. He’s got to try to do the will of the people. They’re going out of an election in 1956. That’ll be, in my opinion, the most important date. Perhaps in our lifetime. If India goes communist, God’s hideous. He has, next to China, the biggest population on Earth. Every, out of every six people in the world, one is in India.

And Nehru’s got to do what the people want. And he’s desperately afraid, himself, and so is all of India, that if another war comes, they’d be the first one’s attack. Why, two hours above the valley, which the capital of India, just two hours, by jet planes, the communists now having Tibet, the communists now having Tibet, a big airfield with jet planes, two hours, shorter than Washington or a civil mine from Russia. And they come and they want to be neutral, there’s another war, because they hope, right way or wrong way, that if they’re neutral, they’ll be like Switzerland, they won’t be attacked. And then if there is another war, they think everybody in us will be killed anyhow, and they hope that they’ll survive all of us, because they’re dead. That’s the way they look at it over there. They’re not as much afraid of communism as they are of a war. So, nobody can do a thing. If he tried to make a military ass of us and be put out by his own parliament in one day, so he must understand him and understand them. They caught him in great fear of a war.

So, India anyhow, he’s a little young republic. Weak like we were. Fourth of July last Sunday. And I was telling them how, 178 years ago, we got our freedom and we were a mighty little… lot of people on the Atlantic coast, and there were only 12 states. India is that way now. China is trying to get strong. She needs our sympathy. We ought to be loving her and praying for her and telling her so, and writing in her and telling them that the American people, the Christian people of the United States, are loving and hoping to make a great success of this little young republic, big young republic, who is just starting out now.

Well, I’d like to ask if somebody would be willing to be my secretary. I don’t think it’s right to ask Alex to do this. She’s got too much in her hands already. And copy these names off and put them up so that she’s right. All right, there’s somebody who’s coming. Thank you. And then I’d like to see you not only write letters, not my letter, but anything you want to ask, but also couldn’t we get started a movement to get the CFO folks of the United States back of an all-out war of Christian kindness around the world? If you don’t do it, who will? That’s why he said that to me. If people like we are don’t do it, whoever will? We might change history.

History, instead of being a blessing to us, might be the most important thing that we ever live. If we and others could do this, we’re losing the battle from them, minds, and hearts. But we can change it as soon as America changes. And see, you don’t win it with bombs, you win it with love. And certainly kindness. I was going to say, all we’re doing so much already, Jeff. We’re doing a lot.

But not a lot. What we are doing has helped. But what we ought to do, what we’ve seen nearly a hundred times what we are doing. It’s a big world. That is true. Oh, Jesus. This is the way You feel about it. Is that the kind of war You want to wage in the world? Do You like the way we’re losing the world?

Hitting the bombs they see and the jet planes and the military countries they see around the world. It’s a drag isn’t us. They see the wrong things. Do You like it? And if You don’t like it, Lord God, what can we here do? Help us not to allow ourselves to be led by emotions to think or do the wrong thing. But help us to be very, very sure that what we do is by will and that He’s right. We pray for our congressmen and for our president. And we pray that America may be directed to make such an impression of love in the world. It’s a world of fact. We haven’t done it yet. Lord help us to do it. But if the people can do any of that, then show us how. Help us to go home tonight prayerfully asking me. You want me to pray for my congressmen? I’ll have You read it. For my senators, I’ll have their ears. They’ll read it. And they’ll pay attention and answer it. You want me to pray for them and then lecture them. And if so, tell them what to write.

In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Thank You. We do not need to wring our hands in helpless desperation. And say that nothing we can do. But that we can pray and we can write. And those two letters, two things together, become the greatest power in America. And we can start a chain action for others to defend. So God directs us now. In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, bless President Eisenhower. He’s trying so hard to find our will and do it. God help us. O bless Thy comrades. Thy we’re seeking Thy will, God help them to find it, and to do it.

For the word’s sake it is parallel and ved disaster. This is our prayer. Amen.